The Herd

Last week, we were cleaning up some kid clutter. The Princess was in true princess fashion and did not want to fully participate. When I explained that picking something up from one spot and dropping it in another was not "cleaning", she said, "Crap!" To which the Prince replied, "Actually, it's 'crud'. That's the scientific word for it." I didn't know science was so simple ... or had so many four-letter words.

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That was also the day that we had a set of twin calves born on the farm. Twins can be a mixed blessing. On one hand, they are a two-fer. Your herd grew more than you expected. On the other hand, one calf can be an underachiever or the cow can reject one (which is why we have a calf to hand-feed in the barn from our last calving season). Anyway, I checked on the calves several times during the day.

The next day, I had a babysitter come to watch the Prince and Princess so that I could retrieve some beef from the abattoir and organize it in our freezers for sale to the public. After picking up our beef and returning to the house, I checked on the children. The conversation went like this:

Prince (excitedly): Mama, the cow ejected the calf and it is on the outside of the fence.

Me (because I couldn't decifer the 8-year-old cowboy wanna-be): The cow did what?